New Staff & Farewell

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Allegro’s newest member is Dr. Megan Lewis who joined in February as a postdoc. Megan received her Bachelor’s degree from Vassar College and her Master’s and PhD degrees from the University of New Mexico in the US. While in New Mexico she was also a Reber predoctoral fellow with the NRAO. She then joined the international Araucaria group working at the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Poland as a postdoctoral researcher. Her research interests include evolved stars, the circumstellar environment, and astrophysical masers. Recently, she has been involved with studies of period-luminosity relations, the connections between maser properties and physical properties, and is heavily involved in the BAaDE Galactic SiO maser survey. She will support the ALMA user community by serving as a contact scientist for PIs with ALMA time and offering general services including face-to-face support for the Dutch ALMA community via proposal preparation and data handling.

 

We would also like to express our gratitude to Dr. Alex Hygate, Dr. Aida Ahmadi, Dr. Ashley Bemis, and Dr. Andrés Pérez Sánchez for their amazing service at Allegro in all aspects. We will miss them greatly, but we wish them all the best for their future endeavors in their career!

 

 

ALMA Cycle 11 Proposal preparation and Important dates

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With the upcoming Cycle 11 call for ALMA proposal, Allegro is providing support to ALMA users with the following plans:

  • For general questions regarding:
    • dual anonymous review process, 
    • distributed peer review, 
    • accessing the ALMA archive and using the ALMA Observing Tool (OT) to prepare your observing programme, 
    • new features in Cycle 11           

          Please direct your questions to violette@strw.leidenuniv.nl or alma@strw.leidenuniv.nl

  • User support that Allegro offers:
    • For quick questions, we encourage our community to reach out to us via email (alma@strw.leidenuniv.nl). Leiden members are also highly encouraged to interact with us via the Allegro slack channel (#allegro) in the Leiden Observatory internal slack, we will keep an eye out for messages! Mutual discussions with colleagues and experienced ALMA users in our community will add value to this exchange and will be welcome and appreciated. 
    • For more complicated cases you can request a meeting with the Allegro staff via Google spreadsheet for face-to-face support (both in-person and zoom options are available). Note that we have limited time blocks.
  • We would like to note also that Allegro members will be traveling between 15-19 April which means that we may not be able to respond right away.  We will do our best to get back to you as soon as possible.
  • Allegro will be hosting a borrel after the ALMA deadline (as a reminder: 5PM CEST on 25th April!) to celebrate. So you are all invited to celebrate your proposal submission with us with drinks and snacks from ~5:15 PM onwards. The borrel will be in the Kaiser Lounge (BM 4.23) at the new Gorlaeus building.

 

Important dates for ALMA Cycle 11 call (more details from the Cycle 11 Call for Proposals):

  • 21 March 2024: Release of the ALMA Cycle 11 Call for Proposals and Observing Tool (OT), and opening of the archive for proposal submission
  • 25 April 2024: Proposal submission deadline
  • October 2024: Start of Cycle 11 observations, spanning 12 months
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Wideband Sensitivity Upgrade Workshop: 24 – 28 June, 2024 at ESO Garching

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In the week of 24 – 28 June, 2024, ESO is hosting a workshop dedicated to discussion of the upcoming Wideband Sensitivity Upgrade (WSU) development. The aim of this workshop is to present the upgrade and to engage the community by showcasing the science that will be enabled in the upcoming years, during which some changes to scientific operations are expected due to the extent of the upgrade, deployment, and commissioning activities.

The deadline for registering for in-person participation is 1st May 2024

For more details, please refer to the announcement page

European ALMA School: 10 – 14 June 2024 in Manchester, UK

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The European ALMA Regional Centre network is organizing an ALMA School that will be hosted by the UK ARC Node on 10 – 14 June 2024 in Manchester, UK. This school is designed to provide training on a broad range of aspects related to ALMA, including interferometry, data calibration and imaging, the ALMA archive, analysis techniques, ALMA science, and future ALMA developments.

For more details please visit the school website.

Science Highlight: Even Better Together

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Using observations of both JWST and ALMA, van Gelder et al. 2024 (2024, A&A 682, A78) unlock the secrets behind the emission of SO2 from the young protostars NGC 1333 IRAS 2A. This sulfurous compound signals evaporating ices but can also be released in accretion shocks where material enters the planet-forming disk. By combining the observations of the vibrationally excited SO2 lines seen with JWST, and the rotational lines in the vibrational ground-state seen with ALMA, the authors find that thermal ice sublimation in the inner hot regions around the protostar explains the emission. They also find that radiative pumping is important for the lines observed with JWST. This paper presents a beautiful synergy of JWST and ALMA.

Moving to the New Building

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Allegro, along with the rest of the Leiden Observatory offices, will be moving to the new Gorlaeus building at the end of March. The move will cause the Allegro staff and desktop computing resources to be offline for a few days. We will also use this time to transition our computing nodes to a new storage system. As a result, we will be offline starting 28 March and will be back on 4 April. This includes face-to-face user support and access to the Allegro computers. After this period we invite you to come by our new office, number BW 4.30, to start preparing for the ALMA deadline!

There will be further interruptions to our normal face-to-face and computing resources when our servers are moved. This will cause all of our computing resources to be offline from 27 May to 31 May.

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ALMA Data Reduction Training Day: November 27, 2023

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On Monday, November 27, 2023, we will host an ALMA Data Reduction Training Day in-person in HL 111.

The training will begin at 9:30 AM and continue into the afternoon with coffee breaks and an hour lunch break. The Allegro team will be presenting a series of talks that cover the following topics: how to go from the archive to obtaining calibrated visibilities, overview for calibration and self-calibration, imaging, analysis tools and visualizing data with CARTA. There will be sufficient time for Question & Answer at the end of each talk.

Several of the talks will include a hands-on component that participants can follow along with. Information on how to connect to the Allegro workstations will be provided prior to the training day to the registered participants.

Registration is now closed!

Program* November 27, 2023
9:15-9:30 Welcome
9:30-10:15 Aida Ahmadi ALMA data: From the archive to calibrated visibilities
10:15-10:45 Violette Impellizzeri Overview of calibration and self-calibration
10:45-11:05 Coffee break
11:05-11:15 Aida Ahmadi Introduction to CASA + technical setup
11:15-12:15 Monica Huang Imaging & tclean
12:15-13:15 Lunch break
13:15-14:00 Monica Huang Imaging & tclean
14:00-14:30 Coffee break
14:30-15:30 Alex Hygate Analysis tools
15:30-16:30 Aida Ahmadi Intro to CARTA

* Note that this is a rough schedule as we plan to dedicate plenty of time for questions after each session.

Directions to Leiden Observatory

Note that this is not the old observatory in the center of Leiden. Instructions on how to get to Leiden Observatory, including transportation from Schiphol Airport or the central trains station, can be found here. Note that these instructions specify the route to the Lorentz Center, which is in the building on the right in the photo below (Oort building). The event will be held in the joining taller building –  Huygens building. Leiden Observatory is located on the 4-5th floors of both buildings, and the Allegro offices are located on the 11th floor of the Huygens building.

Locations inside the building

Workspaces reserved for the ALMA Data Reduction Training Day on November 27, 2023 are located in room HL-111 on the 1st floor of the Huygens building. There is a reception at the entrance of the building where they can provide you with directions.

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Netherlands ALMA+JWST Joint Science Day

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Allegro is pleased to announce the first ALMA+JWST Joint Science Day, which will take place on January 30th, 2024, at Kapteyn Astronomical Institute (Room 161 on the 1st floor) in Groningen. We would like to invite all members of our communities to present your latest scientific results obtained with ALMA and/or JWST. A particular emphasis will be given to projects combining both instruments, but not exclusively, depending on demand. We invite contributions on the synergies with other facilities too. During the Science Day, we will also have talks related to ALMA and JWST technical aspects, news and outlook. The meeting will include ample time to discuss user experiences and related topics.

Invited speakers:

  • Karina Caputi (Kapteyn Astronomical Institute)
  • Łukasz Tychoniec (Leiden Observatory)
  • Martin Zwaan (ESO)
  • Nicolas Crouzet (Leiden Observatory)

 

Netherlands ALMA+JWST Joint Science Day Jan. 30, 2024
Session I (Chair: Alex Hygate)
1000-1005 Welcome (Allegro)
1005-1020 Tom Oosterloo (ASTRON, Groningen) Closing the feedback-feeding loop of the radio galaxy 3C 84 ALMA 
1020-1035 Pratika Dayal (Groningen) Early galaxy formation and its large-scale effects
1035-1050 Ivana van Leeuwen (Leiden) Characterizing the contribution of dust-obscured star formation at ≳ 5 using 19 serendipitously identified [CII] emitters
1050-1105 John McKean (Groningen) Testing the mass complexity of massive elliptical galaxies with ALMA
1105-1125 Martin Zwaan (ESO) The latest from ALMA
1125-1140 ALMA Q&A and discussion
1140-1150 Short break
1150-1250 Fernanda Roman-Oliveira (Groningen) Dynamics and turbulence of regular rotating disc galaxies at z ~ 4.5
1205-1225 Karina Caputi (Groningen) (Invited talk)
1225-1315 Lunch
Session II (Chair: Veronica Allen)
1315-1335 Łukasz Tychoniec (Leiden) Accretion and ejection in a protostellar system linked with ALMA & JWST synergy
1335-1350 Inga Kamp (Groningen) The two prominent disks around TWHya and PDS70
1350-1405 Ardjan Sturm (Leiden) Measuring the icy content of protoplanetary disks using the synergy between JWST and ALMA
1405-1420 Milou Temmink (Leiden) Studying (drift-enhanced) H2O in compact planet-forming disk with JWST-MIRI/MRS
1420-1430 Short break
Session III (Chair: Monica Huang)
1430-1445 Victorine Buiten (Leiden) JWST Reveals Highly-Excited CO in Nucleus of LIRG VV 114
1445-1500 Paul van der Werf (Leiden) TBD
1500-1515 Wout Goesaert (Leiden) A new ALMA view on the Circinus torus and circumnuclear disk
1515-1530 Mathilde Bouvier (Leiden) Sulphur-bearing species as star formation tracers towards the Central Molecular Zone of NGC 253
1530-1545 Joshua Butterworth (Leiden) Molecular Isotopologue Measurements in NGC253 as Possible Tracers of Stellar Evolution
1545-1600 Raffaella Morganti (ASTRON, Groningen) Radio jets expanding in the cold molecular ISM: the case of PKS 0023-26
1600-1610 Short break
Session IV (Chair: Violette Impellizzeri)
1610-1625 Yuan Chen (Leiden) Tracing the formation of complex organic molecules (COMs) from ice to gas using JWST and ALMA
1625-1640 Martijn van Gelder (Leiden) Even better together: a combined study with JWST/MIRI and ALMA on SO2 in a young protostellar system
1640-1655 Julia C. Santos (Leiden) SO2 and OCS towards high-mass protostars with ALMA: a comparative study between gas and ice
1655-1710 Jayatee Kanwar (Groningen) Hydrocarbon-rich disks around very low-mass stars
1710 End of meeting
Directions to Kapteyn Astronomical Institute

Astronomy/Kapteyn Institute, SRON (building name: Kapteynborg)
Room 161 on the 1st floor
Landleven 12
9747 AD Groningen

  • Public transport (time table information can be tapped from 9292 or Google map)
    Train (to Groningen Central Station) + Bus (from Groningen Central Station to Kapteyn Astronomical Institute)
    – train run by NS – arriving at Groningen Central Station, ticket can be purchased via OV-chipkaart
    – bus run by Arriva – line 15 (arriving at bus stop: Nijenborgh), ticket can be purchased via OV-chipkaart
  • Car – we HIGHLY encourage whoever plans to drive please consider carpooling with others to minimize our carbon footprint. Please organize carpooling among yourself, but let us know if you need help.

Further details regarding bus route, parking, and more accessibility information, please refer to: https://www.rug.nl/staff/location/5419

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entrance_kapteyn

ALMA Cycle 10 Statistics

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The ALMA cycle 10 proposal submission statistics again saw some new records. The number of overall submitted proposals for all arrays was 1679 – with 91 as ACA stand-alone projects and 44 large programs (compared to 40 large programs in Cycle 9).  Even though the total number of submitted proposals is lower than for the previous two cycles (1769 proposals in Cycle 9) the overall time requested actually surged again, with over 29,000 hours requested on the 12-m array. The region that saw the highest number of proposals submitted was (again) Europe with a request of 12,177 hours on the 12-m array, also now withstanding the highest oversubscription (8.4), followed by North America (9196 hours, oversubscription of 6.4) , East Asia (5940 hours, oversubscription of 6.2) and Chile (1508 hours, oversubscription of 3.5).  The percentages of proposals for the 12-m array per region, science category, and requested receiver band for regular (top) and large programs (bottom) are shown in the figure below.

 

The percentage of proposals for the 12-m array per region, science category, and requested receiver band for regular programs.

The percentage of proposals for the 12-m array per region, science category, and requested receiver band for large programs.

 

A novelty of Cycle 10 was the introduction of Joint proposals, which resulted in a great success for the observatory: there were 26 proposals submitted to ALMA jointly with JWST, 10 with VLA and another 10 with the VLT, of which 3 proposals requested time in 2 or more partner observatories. 

The final accepted list of proposals contained four large programs (in the categories of planetary science, high-mass star formation, and galaxies (mid- and high-redshift), four joint proposals for which ALMA is the main observatory (with the VLA and JWST), and six VLBI proposals. Despite the high oversubscription, the statistics for the Netherlands were also positive, with 15 PI  proposals accepted (for 36 submitted) and a much wider 96 proposals accepted as collaborators. Of the 7300 hours requested for the 12m array, ~ 3200 hours were awarded in Category 1 (High-z Universe), ~1600 hours in Category 2 (Galaxies), ~850 hours in Category 3 (Star Formation), ~1400 hours in Category 4 (Disks) and finally ~300 hours were awarded in Category 5 (Stars). 

You can find more information about the ALMA Cycle 10 statistics at this link: https://almascience.eso.org/documents-and-tools/cycle10/cycle-10-proposal-submission-statistics

ALMA at 10 years: Past, Present, and Future

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The ALMA partnership is organizing a conference to commemorate 10 years of ALMA Science Observations, taking place in Puerto Varas, Chile, on 4-8 December 2023. The aim of the conference is to look back on the observatory’s accomplishments, highlight the latest ALMA results from all scientific fields, as well as look forward to future technical developments. The latter will include a focus on its ambitious 2030 development roadmap and in particular the ongoing plans for the Wideband Sensitivity Upgrade that will ultimately quadruple the system bandwidth and improve observing efficiency and sensitivity for both continuum and spectral line observations. 

The conference will have a hybrid format and while in-person attendance has reached capacity and is closed, on-line participation, including posters, is open until November 1, 2023 (register for online attendance here). 

For more information, visit the conference website: https://www.almaobservatory.org/en/alma-at-10-years-past-present-and-future/